Chain Letter for Cancer Center Taking On a Life of Its Own / Hospital chiefs irked, feel bigger donations aren't being made

David Segal, Washington Post

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 14, 1999

1999-04-14 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- Brainstorming in her Manhattan apartment, Carol Farkas, a volunteer nurse, had an idea: Send a letter to 10 friends asking them to mail $10 apiece to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, then forward the letter to 10 others. And so on.

A year and half later, Farkas' missive has multiplied like a flu virus and somehow acquired the social cachet of a corner table at Elaine's. It bounced through the elite of New York publishing, then ricocheted off superstars in Hollywood and is now caroming through the corridors of power in Washington.

But Sloan-Kettering officials aren't celebrating the windfall. Instead, they're irked and a little embarrassed about the appeal, which they didn't sanction, and which sounds to them like one of those tacky, insipid chain letters. Though the New York cancer center is keeping the checks, the expense of cashing them, plus worries about being unable to raise more funds from these rich people -- Dustin Hoffman's pockets, after all, are more than $10 deep -- has officials wishing the letter would vanish.

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"Our sense is that if somebody was willing to give $10, they would have given more and we missed an opportunity," said Chris Westerman, a Sloan-Kettering spokeswoman. "We're grateful for the money, but please, if you have one of these letters, just throw it out."

Farkas' letter, however, can't be stopped. It has proven as resilient as anything in medical science, but this epidemic has thrived on word of mouth and status anxiety in the country's most status-conscious precincts.

The Sloan-Kettering letter skittered across the nation like a manic social climber. Its path, traceable through the list of previous recipients that accompanies the appeal, illustrates either that the art of name-dropping is alive and well, or that the bicoastal power networks of the nation's far-flung elites are as strong as ever.